Settling at the Bluff...

17 Nov. 12

We have been toying with the idea of working part time to try refill the rapidly depleting cruising kitty. Well, today it became official. Two of our tenants are in the process of eviction for non payment. This and a few other financial issues have removed our choices and forced us to make a decision. Our original plan of sailing to New Zealand, resettling and finding work there, has basically been destroyed by a number of events in succession. So left with no other alternative, this morning we made an offer on a cheap car. Over the next few weeks I will seek out employment agencies, and hopefully find some or other gainful employment. I am not quite sure how long we will have to work, possibly a year or two, but I suppose it depends on the amount we earn.

When Lola first said, “Yes, we can work our way slowly down the coastline”. I was under the impression she meant sail slowly down the coast and stop at all the ports, maybe even do a little sight seeing. Well, was I wrong or what!

17 Nov. 12

It’s about nine at night. Lola went to bed a few minutes ago and I am sitting outside drinking a cup of coffee. It never quite gets dark here, just too many lights in the container yards surrounding the club. The lights are fairly far away so they serve only to keep the horizon lit, almost like sunrise in the morning just before the sun finally shows its face, but with a much more artificial glow. A bit like a badly made, low budget, movie background.

It has been raining almost non stop since we arrived here on Friday just a bit more than a week ago and a cold breeze is blowing gently through our cockpit. The chain mooring we are on is well protected from the southerly winds and I watch as it blows ripples across the water behind our boat and listen as it gives the occasional whistle through the rigging wires of the boats on the other side of the estuary. I also hear the periodic clanging of stray halyards as the wind knocks them against the masts of the many lonely unoccupied boats that surround us.

To my right I can see the never ending stream of trucks crossing the bridge over the estuary all carrying large heavy containers towards the waiting ships in the harbour. The sound of the truck diesel engines droning on throughout the night becomes just another big city sound that fades into the back of my mind. The sounds are almost hypnotic in their consistency with the occasional clang as one of the chains used to secure their loads goes into revolt and smashes onto its tormentor.

The rows of trucks remind me of a line of ants moving large sticks and grains of sand from one hole in the ground to another one. We are quite similar to these ants just on a larger and more destructive scale. In one part of the world we are building dykes and retaining walls in an attempt to reclaim land from the sea. In another part we are dredging harbours and digging out soil to make the harbours bigger so that we can move more of our sticks and grains of sand from one place to another.     

19 Nov. 12

This morning is turning out to be a true blue Monday. I woke up to find my computer had developed a mind of its own and would no longer listen to any of my instructions. The kids toilet decided to join in the strike action and refused to flush. I could feel my blood reaching boiling point and thought of tying the toilet together with the laptop and then tossing them both overboard to sink to the bottom, never to be seen again. After a while I calmed down and restored my laptop settings to a previous setting. This fixed the problem, but only for a while, then it went on strike yet again. Maybe I haven’t fed it enough power or something.

The toilet, well lets just say it started working again after flushing it for about fifteen minutes. In my mind I know that it is not actually fixed, boat toilets are never actually fixed.

To add to all of this I also realised that soon I will be returning to pleb ville. In case you are wondering where this pleb ville is, I will give clear directions. It can be anywhere and everywhere all at the same time. It is a place in your mind but not in your heart. Yes, you guessed it. Pleb ville is the reality of going to work everyday. Waking up in the morning and realising that your day no longer belongs to you but has been sold to someone else.

Welcome to pleb ville. Please don’t forget to brush your teeth in the morning so that you can add a minty freshness to your bosses rear whilst you land up kissing his butt.

Hopefully no future boss reads that.

20 Nov. 12

Yesterday I wanted to sell the boat and buy a camper instead. Today I went up to the bow and sat on one of the seats we made. Whilst sitting on the bow looking down at the water, my mind started wandering and dreaming about far away places. The stupid boat captures your imagination, making you believe things that are not realistic, then you become an unwitting slave to your own illusions.

23 Nov. 12

We have been in Durban for two weeks today. Last night we were invited to a braai with all the cruisers that are here at the moment. They are quite a mixed bunch coming from all different parts of the world. We have a couple from Australia with two kids, a French couple from Canada with, I don’t quite know how many but it looked like a lot of kids. Then we have a couple from New Zealand and another couple from France. The French couple also have a kid. So even though it was short notice and we didn’t have anything prepared for the braai, except of course some alcohol, we decided to go to shore and join in the festivities. It has been a long time since I last seen so many kids in one place so Rauen and Kyle made some new friends. I didn’t realise how difficult this life would be on the kids. They don’t get much social activity with other kids because there usually aren’t any other kids. At least they got to meet other kids last night and I watched as they quickly found the ones that suited them, separating those ones from the rest of the pack and spending time with their new found friends. I of course drank a bit to much again and don’t feel very fresh this morning. Will I ever learn? Somehow I just don’t think so.

25 Nov. 12

Our new second hand car eventually arrived on Friday and I wasn’t sure if I was excited or depressed. My mind was leaning more towards the depressed side. Getting the car meant that a decision was actually made and final. We had planted our first tap root and are now starting to grow back onto the land. The freedom that I felt before, freedom to just leave whenever I felt like it, was now gone. I know that the feeling of freedom is not a reality and is purely a state of mind, but now that it is gone, I find myself wishing it back. 

The sad reality is that we don’t really have any choice. Okay I suppose we do have some choice, but it is limited and based on a few factors that are partially out of our control. Lola and I discussed the subject of finances and the reality is that the cost of the life on the boat isn’t as cheap as it is advertised to be. We also had a finite plan, with a finite amount of money. Sadly the repairs and everything else that happened stole almost all of our allocated time and most of our budget. If all went according to plan, by now we would have been in the south pacific well on our way to our final destination of New Zealand.  But, …reality has set in and now we had to make some hard decisions. We are no longer sure anymore if we want to end our journey in New Zealand or continue on from there.

So at the moment our choices are as follows. Sell Yrumoar and go back to normal life. No, I don’t really consider that an option, rather a punishment. Or, find work here in Durban for a year or two, then move down to East London and find work there for a while, and so on down the coast. Whilst working, squirrel away as much of our income as possible and do the necessary upgrades on Yrumoar to make sure she is completely ready. Our living expenses decrease as each of our kids complete their education and we thus need less money at various stages in the future. Our current investment portfolio isn’t quite enough but we hope to build it up a bit along the SA coast line. We also hope that Lola manages to get some TEFL work somewhere along the way after we leave SA.  So that seems to be the plan, at the moment.    

Moved to anchor off PYC

13 Nov. 12


On Saturday morning we untied the mooring lines at the bluff and motored across Durban harbour. About an hour later we arrived at Point yacht club and dropped our anchor about thirty metres away from the main shipping channel. We were expecting a visit from Lola’s uncle Barry and his wife Ann later in the afternoon for sundowners. They arrived at about five and we collected them on the dingy. After a few glasses of wine we dropped them back on the walk-on and came back to Yrumoar. Lola’s sister Kim and her husband Darren arrived on Sunday with two bunny chows and some KFC. That completed our expected visitors. The bunny chows were awesome.

Right now I am just not sure what our plans are. The trip down rocked everyone’s nerves and at this point none of us are quite ready to get back out to sea.

Sail to Durban

08 Nov. 12


Lola is going to town this morning whilst I go through our, 24 hour before we leave, check list. We made this check list to remind us to do certain things, like making sure the bilges are dry and the motors have enough coolant, before we go on a journey. Similar to checking your cars tyre pressure and oil level before you drive away on holiday. There are a lot more things to check on a boat than on a car, but then a boat is basically a combination of a car and a house all rolled into one.



I feel sorry for our youngest child, Kyle during all of this. Under his bed, sitting waiting patiently is a small, diesel eating, water spitting, metal beast. This beast has to be examined, and thus Kyle has to strip his bed and mattress. He also has a large sail locker under his bed. Every second or third day I find myself looking for something in this locker and then, Kyle’s bed, well, it gets moved.



12 Nov. 12

The last few days have been absolutely traumatic seeming to end yesterday with Lola finally suffering a complete meltdown. She broke into tears for the smallest things and nothing I said or did could ease her tension. The trip down from Richards bay coupled with female issues managed to get the better of her and her nerves finally snapped. We were very uncomfortably anchored in Durban which is an extremely busy harbour with tug boats passing near us every few minutes. These tugs create huge wakes that stumble across the water and meet the underside of Yrumoar causing us to rock violently from side to side. If this isn’t enough every second ass in Durban seems to own a power boat and comes roaring past us, as if on fire, creating more huge wakes to make our lives a living bouncing hell. We desperately needed at least one good nights sleep but the weather and all the commotion around us just wasn’t going to give us any respite.

It all started on Friday morning in Richards bay. Never start a journey on a Friday. This was one of the niggling thoughts in the back of my mind as we started the motors and undid the mooring lines for what we believe to be the final time we will be leaving Richards bay. On the dockside we said our, see you later, goodbye’s to our friends from Sea Shoes. In my mind I quietly thought about our last goodbye and hoped this time we would actually leave the harbour and not return a few minutes later.

The predicted wind was North east blowing at five knots for the morning then slowly building during the course of the day. The wind would peak out in the early evening at about twenty five knots when we were expected to arrive in Durban harbour. Wave heights were predicted between one and two metres about eight seconds apart. In the late afternoon the wave spacing became a bit short, around four seconds apart, but we decided this would not be much of a problem. Armed with this information we looked forward to some pleasant sailing conditions on our now to be repeated first leg of our trip.

Another small sailing vessel from offshore sailing academy in Durban was parked next to us for a few days and left the harbour on its trip back down about an hour before us. I had a quick chat with their instructor and he told me they would head out to about one hundred metres, about eight miles offshore, on their trip down. I told him that this time we decided to hug the coastline hoping to find something interesting to occupy our time. We watched them exiting the harbour as Rauen and I hoisted the mail sail on a triple reef. We triple reefed, firstly because we are lazy sailors, and secondly in anticipation of the twenty five knots expected to arrive in the afternoon. I tend to be overcautious and this makes me and the crew happy. We rounded the breakwater and motor sailed through the washing machine at the harbour mouth turning south east towards the large container ships anchored outside the harbour.

The wind was blowing a gentle five knots westerly, not at all as predicted, but we decided to motor sail anyway, hoping the predicted wind would arrive shortly. The wind kept blowing westerly for most of the morning and we had a pleasant motor sail managing to see whales performing huge jumps and splashes in the water. Our autopilot seemed to function quite well giving us all the time to just relax and enjoy the sailing.

Then our predicted wind arrived. Our speed increased and we turned off the motors. Now we were sailing. At this point we were all still happy and comfortable.

Just before we reached the halfway mark at the Tugela river mouth the wind started increasing in velocity. As the wind velocity increased so the waves built. The wind kept on increasing and the waves became bigger and bigger. Eventually the autopilot could no longer manage to keep us on course and Lola hand steered whilst Rauen and I went onto the coach roof to bring down the main sail. After wrestling with the small reefed main for about a half hour in the blustering wind and pitching deck we finally managed to get it packed back into our stack-pack. We then rolled in the roller furler sail until only a small piece of sail was open to the now gale force winds.

I had no idea at what force the wind was blowing since our wind instruments don’t work, but I could feel it was blowing way above the predicted twenty five knots. Looking at my weather study book and the sea conditions, I judged the wind to be blowing around forty knots.

The conditions kept on deteriorating with the wind screaming through our rigging, the waves becoming steeper and bigger. I hand steered trying to keep us on our course towards Durban but eventually had to turn Yrumoar off course and run down wind. I kept looking over my shoulder to try predict the wave action on our stern and would watch as huge walls of green sea water came rushing towards us, the crests tumbling crashing and rolling down the face of the wave towards us. White foam sprayed off the surface of the waves and the air was wet, filled with sea spray making the helm steering slippery and hard to control.

The large mountains of water, now the height of our cockpit roof, would reach the stern, smashing into our dingy tied sideways onto the dive platform and wash into the cockpit. The waves kept trying to turn Yrumoar broadside on and I kept fighting to keep her pointing away from their attempts at capsizing her.

At about three in the afternoon we received a call on the radio from the sailing school instructor on the sailing vessel that left just before us in the morning asking if we are all okay. Lola told him we were running down wind but were all fine. He replied stating that the conditions were horrific but they were also fine. I asked Lola to ask them what the wind speed was. They replied, thirty five to forty knots.

At eight in the evening we fought our way into Durban harbour vowing to put a “for sale” sign on Yrumoar first thing in the morning.

It was after ten in the evening by the time we had Yrumoar safely tied onto a walk-on at the bluff yacht club.

To Durban...or not to Durban

24 Oct. 12


We caught a taxi into town and bought a mirror. This will be the only mirror on the boat and I will fit it in the main bathroom. Until now we haven’t had a mirror on the boat but decided that it was probably a good idea to be able to see what we look like before we get off the boat and meet new people.

Whilst in town walking through the mall, Lola looked at me and told me that she feels excited about our trip for the first time in a while. We had been studying the weather and there appeared to be a window opening up on Sunday morning. The window seemed long enough for us to reach East London. This was the main reason for our visit to town. I also felt a prickle of excitement in my stomach as we stood outside the mall with three overloaded trolleys waiting for the taxi that would return us to Yrumoar.

The rain was pelting down on us as we loaded the groceries into the boot of the taxi. We were completely soaked by this sudden downpour but this just served to elate our mood even more and I found myself happily daydreaming about exotic destinations as the taxi drove up to our dockside. I was so busy dreaming that I almost forgot to pay for the taxi ride and Lola had to stop and reminding me that I have to pay.

This morning however things have changed. I woke up to hear Lola say that all her clothes lying on our bedroom side were soaked. I got up and together we discovered that our portlight had leaked during the night and a small puddle had made itself at home on the side. This was something that we believed we had fixed over a year ago now.

Next Lola went onto the internet and discovered that our weather window for Sunday had changed. The window was still there but someone had drawn the curtains, ruffled the sheets and stirred the seas into a frenzy, tossing in, for good measure, some near gale force winds. All my excited feelings were suddenly gone as reality pressed its heavy hand on my head, forcing me back down onto the ground.

28 Oct. 12

Lola has fanatically cleaned the boat over the past few days. This is a bit unusual for her since she has never been a neat freak before now. I must admit that the boat looks fantastic and she has been doing a fine job. I have possibly jinxed her cleaning spree now that I have mentioned it. At least we now, for the first time since we bought the boat, have a place for everything.

Yesterday morning Lola dressed up in a bright yellow rain coat and I dressed in an even brighter yellow raincoat. Looking like two complete idiots we walked the two kilometres to the water police in the rain with our flight plan to Durban. I still don’t quite understand why it is called a flight plan and not a sailing plan, but I suppose there must be some or other good reason for this. Another weather window appeared to be opening up and we decided to use this window to sail down to Durban. We arrived at the water police looking like a pair of luminous drowned rats and had our flight plan stamped. Then the rain stopped and we managed to dry out during our walk back.

This morning at two o clock, after tossing and turning, waking every so often and looking at Lola’s cell phone to check the time, we got up. Lola made me a cup of coffee and we sat in the cockpit preparing ourselves for the day ahead. Our next door neighbours also got up and I invited them over for a cup. The weather service had predicted that the wind would swing from south west to north east at about three o clock. Three o clock came and went, but the wind stayed south westerly. A thunder storm was periodically lighting the sky to our west and was accompanied by light rain. Lola and I decided that we would wait for the thunder storm to pass before we would leave. The prospect of being the tallest thing out on the ocean during a thunder storm isn’t my idea of fun. It fact it rates in the area of bungee jumping without a rope, or sky diving without a parachute. So we waited for the storm to dissipate. After about an hour, it did, but the wind was still coming from the south west. So we waited.

At about six the wind appeared to have made a turn to the west, so we said our goodbyes, untied the mooring lines and started motored towards the harbour mouth. On our way we hoisted our main sail reefed down to the third reef. Once we exited the harbour we were met by three metre waves spaced about ten seconds apart. We were also met by about two knots of south westerly wind. We continued out for about a half an hour trying to decide what to do. Eventually we decided to turn around and come back and wait for an actual window. One that we can sail, using the wind and not have to burn all our diesel motoring against the wind.

It is now eleven o clock and the wind has just switched to north east.

29 Oct. 12

I am again beginning to wonder if we will actually ever leave. So many thoughts float around in my mind. Has the weather really been the only reason for us to still be here? Is there something else that is keeping us here? Are we just afraid to drop the lines?

30 Oct. 12

Woke up at four this morning to the slap slap slap sound of the main halyard knocking against the mast. The mast is right above my head and the noise carries itself down the mast and into our bedroom. We have a bungee cord attached to this halyard to stop it slapping against the mast, but this morning it was slapping anyway. So I got out of bed, put on some shorts, and went outside. It had been raining the whole night and the decks were super wet. It was also quite cold. I checked the bungee and it was still attached, so I looked up the mast to find the source of the slap. Somehow or other the halyard had hooked around one of the mast steps near the top of the mast and pulled itself close enough to the mast to be able to slap away happily onto the mast. I unhooked the halyard from the step, tightened the bungee and voila the noise stopped. The cold wind coupled by a slight drizzle and my warm state of dress however made sure that I was now completely awake. Since I was already awake and already wet, I decided to have a shower. Unfortunately for me someone here at the yacht club had decided that hot water in the showers was unnecessary, so they had some device installed that would make sure that we never have hot water again. I think I will have to write a strongly worded letter to the club.

Since we are going to be here for another week or so I decided to start making some new stairs for the coach roof. The existing ones are made from wood and have rotten to such an extreme that we can no longer use them. Wood. I hate wood. I never hated wood before we bought a boat, but now, I hate wood. The only thing I can say about wood is that it will rot. It’s not even good enough for a braai since the invention of charcoal. Anyone that decides to build anything on a boat with wood must be an idiot.

01 Nov. 12

Another new month has arrived and another old month has passed and still we haven’t left. I never realised just how long it would take us to leave. I honestly believed that we would be gone within a few months after we bought the boat. But still here we sit.

The new stairs are slowly taking shape and I converted the spare room into a workshop so that I can still work when it rains. And that is all that has been happening, rain, rain and more rain. We haven’t even been able to test our new solar panels since there hasn’t been any sunshine. I can remember last year at about this time, we were still on the hard, and also struggled to find days to work when it didn’t rain.

Our financial woes are also on my mind at the moment. Yesterday I received a call from my X asking me about our plans for next year. She asked me how we will be making payments whilst we are out at sea with no internet connection. I told her that the payments are taken from my account via debit order, so nothing really changes. Her phone call however reminded me that real life still has to happen and we still have huge financial responsibilities ahead of us. My daughter finishes her degree this year so will be meeting the real world next year. My oldest son is going into his final year at school next year and wants to study engineering at university thereafter. We then still have two other kids that need to be educated. After her call I felt the tightness in my chest caused by stress. Stress that comes with reality, and the realisation that we are like trapeze artists, swinging high above the ground, happy and free. But looking down towards the ground so far away, I suddenly realise we are swinging without a safety net.

06 Nov. 12

I hate the parking we are in at the moment. The walk-on is new and therefore in good repair. However, it is situated next to the slip and there is a constant flow of boats in and out of the water just behind us. These boats are going out of the water because they have something wrong with them and need to be repaired. The repairs are mostly routine, but every now and then, one of these boats has a problem.

This morning one of those boats that have problems had to use the slip. I sat in the cockpit and watched as he came motoring down the channel towards the slip. He went straight past the slip without turning, and for a moment I thought he was just going out to sail for the day. I was just about to loose interest in him when I heard the roar of his engines. This was my first indication that he was experiencing problems.

I followed the sound of the roaring engines and discovered him in the channel trying to turn around towards the slip. He somehow managed to turn and came flying at full tilt, barely missing the lagoon that was parked at the end of our walk-on, past the back of our boat. With the motors still at full tilt he shot across the water and headed straight past the slip in the direction of the boats on the next walk-on behind us. I could see the panic on the skipper’s face as he rammed the motors into reverse gear, only to discover that this made him pick up even more speed going forward. He then pulled the levers further backwards, hoping to stop his forward momentum, but with the motors reaching maximum revs his forward speed just continued increasing.

The innocent crew from Sea Shoes were all standing on the back of their boat and managed to push him into a different direction. The direction however led him straight into the stern of Klai, the boat parked next to Sea Shoes. I heard the crunch as the two boats met. The skipper kept shouting to his assistant on the boat to push him away, but it was already to late and his assistant just couldn’t ever have enough strength to stop the six or ten tons of heavy fibreglass and steel from meeting.

I could feel my heart beat racing as he somehow managed to turn around and started accelerating towards our side of the docks. Lola and I shouted at him to stop the motors and rather toss a rope across to us. He didn’t listen and just kept on going faster and faster. His bow swung again and this time he headed towards the rocks just to the left of the slipway. Again he yanked down hard on the throttles. The motors roared and he rushed forward towards the rocks. I grabbed my head in anticipation of the imminent crash I was about to witness. Somehow he missed the rocks and headed for a second time in the direction of Sea Shoes. He barely missed them for a second time and again headed in our direction. Lola again shouted for him to slow down, switch off the motors and toss a rope towards us. At this point he managed to turn and headed at full speed towards the slipway. By now a huge crowd had gathered on the docks and everyone was shouting for him to toss ropes instead of trying to use his defective motors. Once again he rammed the throttles into full reverse gear and shot forward onto the slipway. The trailer was in the slipway waiting for his arrival and the workers had to jump off the trailer and run to save their own lives as he came tearing down onto them. I heard the thump and seen the shudder as the boat collided with something under the water and came to an eventual standstill.

It took about an hour for my adrenalin to calm down and for my body to stop shaking. We need to get out of here.

07 Nov. 12

Again we took the two kilometre walk around to Tuzi Gazi waterfront and handed our flight plan across to the police officer sitting behind the counter. This time however it was slightly different, he checked our forms and made some phone calls. I asked him, “Who are you calling?” He answered, “The guys downstairs.” I asked him, “Who are the guys downstairs, and why are you calling them?” He informed me by stating, “You need to be inspected, and I am arranging an inspection for you.” I said, “oh! that’s a bit different to the last time we checked out.” He dialled a few numbers getting no response from them. Then he looked over at me with a quizzical look on his face, his eyebrows raised high on his forehead. Suddenly his expression changed and with a new resolved look on his face he dialled one more time. When a voice answered the call he introduced himself to the voice and promptly handed the receiver across to me. I stood dumbfounded with the receiver in my hand. He then pointed at the receiver motioning me to speak to the unknown voice on the other side. I said, “hello.” The voice replied, “hello, how can I help you.” I replied, “…uh…. I don’t know.” The voice asked, “who are you?” I answered, “Barry.” The voice asked, “And why are you calling me?” I said, “I am not sure, this police officer mentioned something about an inspection, but I’m not sure why, or what he is talking about”. He said, “oh, are you leaving the country”. I said, “no”. He then instructed me to hand the phone receiver back to the police officer. I did. They spoke for about three seconds. The police officer on the other side of the counter said okay, stamped our flight plan and we left the building. Tomorrow morning we will hand the flight plan in at the office and it will be faxed across to port control. We then have thirty six hours to leave the harbour. Hopefully the weather stays the same as predicted.